Nearing the end of a two-year sentence for crimes that included forcible confinement and break and enter, the 34-year-old Bowden Institution inmate had a lot more to look forward to than most of the men he was serving time with.

“He had a job to go to, he had all this stuff,” said Mona Perry, Adams’ mother, in a conversation with Postmedia this week.

“His dad had a job for him in Leduc — he has his own business.”

Sadly, Perry would never get the chance to watch her son walk through Bowden’s gates as a free man.

On the morning of Nov. 11, guards found Adams unresponsive in his cell, suffering from an apparent drug overdose.

Rushed to Calgary and admitted into the critical care ward at Foothills hospital, Cody’s prognosis was grim.

A phone call from the hospital social worker informed Perry of the news.

Arriving at the hospital that afternoon, Perry said news from the doctors wasn’t good — and despite heroic efforts by everybody involved in his care, Perry made the heartbreaking decision to remove her son from life support.

“We chose to let him go,” Perry said.

“I was there when I pushed him from my body, and I was there when I let him go.

“That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

***

Cody James Adams was born in Leduc on May 17, 1983, a bundle of joy for both Perry and her then-husband.

“His dad and I went our separate ways when he was about a year old,” Perry said, explaining both he and her ex-husband worked hard to maintain stability.

“We always shared custody — it was a loving home.”

Eventually re-marrying, Perry sold her business and moved the family to Red Deer.

“I always worked, we always worked — he had a good, clean upbringing,” she said.

Cody eventually ran into trouble with addiction and his family rallied in support — emotionally, spiritually and financially.

“I’d spent hundreds of thousands of dollars — and not just on rehab,” she said.

“I can say I spent $200,000 on his rehab, but it was the fallout — buying him a new pickup, getting him a new spot to stay, all that stuff that his dad and I went through to get him back on track.”

Cody initially attended two government-sponsored addiction programs in Edmonton and British Columbia before his family tried private rehab facilities.

Perry and her husband flew from their home in Arizona to enroll Cody in a 90-day, $40,000 program organized by Narcano, a substance abuse organization run by the Church of Scientology.

Cody also completed two separate 90-day rehab programs at Top of The World Ranch, a world-class, $15,000-per-month treatment center near Fort Steele, B.C.

Through his triumphs and failures, Cody’s family never left his side.

“We weren’t reluctant parents, we were hands on — but it wasn’t like we were just writing cheques,” Perry said.

“We went to family support days, we flew out there, we drove out there — we did all we could do.”

In March 2015, Cody came to live at the family acreage just outside of Red Deer.

A month later, a phone call from Perry’s lawyer said Cody had been arrested, accused of robbing and holding a man against his will.

It’s a crime Perry suspects her son took the blame for, in order to protect somebody who had more to lose going to jail than he did.

“That was just Cody, that’s what Cody would do,” Perry said.

“When Cody was clear-of-head and not using, you couldn’t find a better, more caring guy.”

Cody spent the bulk of his sentence at Bowden Institution, a federal medium-security prison just south of Red Deer.

While it broke her heart to see her son behind bars, Perry hoped the harsh reality of prison would be the catalyst to finally get his life back on track.

“He went through the court system and ended up in jail — I thought maybe this’ll give him a few years under his belt of clean time,” she said.

Having her son so close to home resulted in weekly visits from both Perry and Cody’s father.

“This wasn’t a guy that people had given up on,” she said.

“This was a guy people still cared about.”

A prison lock-down cancelled what would have been Perry’s last meeting with her son.

A day before her scheduled Nov. 7 visit, a prison official called to say the appointment was on hold.

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